MUSHROOMHEAD

A Wonderful Life NAPALM

Masked metal also-rans still hitchhiking on the road to relevance

We could argue all day whether Slipknot or Mushroomhead donned the masks first, but what we could never debate is who’s the better act. Eight albums in and the Cleveland ninepiece have pretty much been reduced to a side-note in metal’s history, and

A Wonderful Life is evidence why. Over its ludicrously long, 17-track, 71-minute running time, the band do a fairly passable job of impersonating a not-asgood version of Faith No More, stripped of all the idiosyncratic originality and genre-bending creativity that make that band so special. Instead Mushroomhead plod along on tracks like The Heresy, sounding unremarkably ‘wacky’ at best, and dated and downright clumsy at worst. ■■■■■■■■■■

FOR FANS OF: Dog Fashion Disco, American Head Charge, Powerman 5000

STEPHEN HILL